Hypnogaja: Lucid Dreams
Coming Home
When Hypnogaja brings home a demo track from the road, the musicians break it down and work it into tracks and riffs they record in their Hollywood studio, which is tucked away in Jeeve’s home. “Once we’ve written the track or the demo, we use that as a base,” says Jeeve. “We have a template and we’ll just add a click track over the top. The drums have usually been programmed ahead of time, so the drummer can listen to them and decide whether to add something or change the drum track. When it’s time to record, we just mute the original program drums and record him.”
The rest of the band comes in later to add their voices to the song, sometimes all at once, but mostly on an individual basis. “Most bands get together and record three or four instruments at the same time, but we record the whole band at once,” says Jeeves. “We go upside down. We keep all the sweetness stuff from the road demos and we add all the live stuff at the end.”
Each member has a say in a song’s final sound and feel. “Sometimes the songwriter takes over and that drives the process,” says Donikian. “Jason will have a melody, just an a cappella and we’ll start playing a guitar or a piano. Then the song will go in its own direction before we even get to recording.”
Recording in a home studio has its advantages. The bandmates get to lay down tracks whenever they like and the creative recording process never has a time limit. And, of course, it’s much less expensive. “In a big studio you spend thousands of dollars an hour,” says Donikian. “What do you get in those big studios? Maybe a coke machine and an assistant who gets you things. We’d much rather be at home or in the van, taking the creative process into our own hands.”
On Stage
When performing live, “you can go super DJ electronic style or you can go full live band,” says Donikian. “We wanted to go the full-band route and give a full-energy show.”
Full energy means lots of live instruments sprinkled with just a little electronic seasoning, provided by a PowerBook G4 running Nuendo and Logic Pro. “The band sounds as big without the PowerBook,” says Donikian, “but it’s great to have for some of the stuff that you would otherwise have to have an orchestra for. People are used to the record and you want to give them as much of the album you can without sounding like you’re lip synching to it.”
Some sounds, however, simply can’t be reproduced in a live setting without technical intervention, even if the band did have its own orchestra. For “Put Your Hate on Me,” a track from the album “Below Sunset,” “we basically created a 300-person choir in the computer, using overlapping tracks,” says Donikian. “There were just five of us — Jason, myself, Jeeve, and two female singers. We wanted this Gothic, dramatic choir to creep in as the song builds to its climax. Jeeve layered more that 300 tracks, just recordings of us singing ‘place your hate upon me, I will bear your burden’ in Latin. We all sang the line a few times in different timbres to give it depth. In the end we got this really fat group sound that everybody thinks is a huge choir. When we play live, we play that track with the PowerBook as a show closer.”
Dreaming of Tomorrow
Playing live has molded the Hypnogaja sound, forming a raw, visceral band. “At some point the tide turns — you start playing live and it starts driving the scenario,” says Donikian. “That’s how we found the sound for our new album, ‘Below Sunset.’ We discovered the sound, the foundation, for our band as we move forward. There’s a basis with that album, with the material and the lyrics. It has hard rock, piano ballads, and songs that are quirky and unique. We found a way to unite our varied music pallets in a way that’s succinct and in a way that ties it all together for us as a band and for our audience.”
That sound will act as a foundation for the group when it builds its next few albums. In the meantime, it’ll also build its support system, calling on other technophiles and music junkies from around the world. “We’re finding like-minded people who are in the same creative vibe, people who also use the technology we use,” says Donikian. “Everybody’s on the same page and we get to share files if we need anything. It’s cool when you’re working with people who are all sharing the same platform. It creates a real synergy between everybody and you can deliver top-notch product that way.”
